In a Moment
by Ruby Casablanca
Summary: His mind was screaming that this couldn't be right, that Rose couldn't be there. This woman, she looked like Rose, stood like Rose, but Rose definitely did not wear oversized white jumpers and desert clothes. "Hello," she greeted, gleeful smile on her face, tongue just poking out between her teeth. "Couldn't resist." DW 50th one-shot.


A/N: Something I found hiding on my computer since the DW 50th Anniversary Special. Guess I just never got around to posting it. I really hated that the 10th Doctor never got to see Rose, so this is how I'm going to fix that...sort of. Hope you enjoy, even if it's over a year late!

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In a Moment

"Rose?"

He spoke her name a bit breathlessly, taken aback by the familiar yet strikingly different blonde in front of him. He had already endured an interesting series of events: first unwittingly getting engaged to the Queen of England and thus realizing that his wife-to-be was actually a Zygon. Then meeting not only his future self, but also a past self he wished to never see again, one he thought he locked away. And then he went and changed his own past with said other selves – that was a big one. It was almost too much for him to take, and had it not been for the help of Clara Oswald, he probably would've gone mad. But now there she was, one last adventure, his Rose Tyler, standing in the TARDIS, waiting for him to return as if nothing had changed.

His mind was screaming that this couldn't be right, that Rose couldn't be there. He had left her behind – again – with the other him, the him she could have for the rest of her life. This woman, she looked like Rose, stood like Rose, but Rose definitely did not wear oversized white jumpers and desert clothes. She looked rugged, untamed. But the sparkle in her eye as she took him in made him fill with a warmth only Rose could provide.

"Hello," she greeted, gleeful smile on her face, tongue just poking out between her teeth. "Couldn't resist."

"Is it really you? Are you-?"

His energy was building, his jubilation soaring. Could it be? Could it really be her?

"Afraid not," she denied him, his enthusiasm slipping, and he steadied himself as not to fall from the swift blow to his hearts. "I'm just an interface. When you touched the Moment, I was able to link to your mind, like I did to the other you. I'm only a vision, so long as you want me."

She looked at him with honest intent, her eyes clear and the same warm, dark brown he was so accustomed to. She looked so real…

"Can I…?"

He reached his hand up to her face, longing to stroke that smooth, rosy skin, painfully aware that she had done somewhat of the same gesture to him the first time they were separated on that beach. And he had a feeling that her answer would mirror his own as well.

"No touch," she told him apologetically, pointing to his head. "I'm only up here,"

"Right…" he replied, trying his best to swallow his disappointment down by distracting himself with the console. He walked away from the projection of the woman he lost twice over, leaning against the console and pulling at the levers, twisting the knobs idly, until he found the words to speak – or more like ramble. "So, you stopped us from destroying Gallifrey then? Messing with history, changing fixed points in time? You've been a bad girl Rose Tyler."

She smiled once more, her face lighting up as she stepped around him, grabbing onto a piece of the coral that grew through the vents of his beloved time machine.

"You stopped yourself from destroying Gallifrey. I had nothing to do with it."

He turned to her, staring incredulously at where she stood looking up at the coral. He stared until he caught her eye.

"But you did!" he insisted, making his way to her again, crowding her space as he was used to doing until they were nearly nose-to-nose. "You were the one who pulled the timelines together. You made all this possible! You saved me."

She could sense the softness, the honesty in his last words that made her soften her playful gaze. This man was hurting in ways that she could not understand, not as the Moment, nor as the Bad Wolf. She could see the vulnerability lying just under the surface, and wondered how much impact the real Rose Tyler had on the Doctor's life to make him this way.

"I'll always save you, my Doctor. Always."

And of course, she was speaking as the Moment to her master, to the only man who had the gall to want to use her when all the others cowered. She was attached to the troubled man, the man she knew she had to change and was glad she did. But she was also speaking as Rose Tyler, as the little bit of that human girl that she had adapted to play her role and alter the course of history. She was speaking as Rose because that was what the Doctor needed more than anything at a moment like this.

Something in the Doctor's eyes, some fragment of buried emotion, let her know that he was grateful for the effort. If he would just close his eyes, he could pretend that she was real, that her voice wasn't just a voice or a memory of a love long gone, but a real and tangible being. But he didn't close his eyes, and she was grateful, because if the pain of her voice were enough to inspire his reaction thus far, then even an interface such as her would feel the pain of man who had lost a love thrice over.

Eventually he stepped away and ran his hands through his hair, busying himself with the console again, yet this time she followed him, staying her distance but making herself known at his side.

"Do you know how she is, the real Rose?" He asked abruptly, his head coming out of his thoughts with a rapid fervor. It was as if he were struck with a thought, child-like enthusiasm written plain on his features. "Can you tell? Do you have any sort of connection or a telepathic link…?"

He was babbling, and she wished for nothing more than to hold his hand and soothe him until he calmed.

"As the Moment I see all things. All that ever was, and all that ever will be," she flashed another brilliant, mischievous smile, actually managing to get him follow suit. But the smile fell into a more melancholy one as she took her breath. "Rose is fine, from what I can tell. She's happy on that other Earth. She even has a family to call her own now."

The Doctor was stunned silent, tension thickening in the air.

"Good…that's good…" he cleared his throat, turning away.

"Don't be so down Doctor. Just because things may be a bit not good now, doesn't mean that they will be later."

He took in a tired laugh, rubbing his hands over his face.

"Things hardly ever get better, especially for this life it seems," he sighed, thinking on all the people he lost, how many times he thought things would just get better when in reality they only got worse. He wondered how much longer he'd have to keep on living like that.

"Except for today," she reminded him, her smile now trying to cheer him up.

"But I won't remember that now will I?" he replied with bitterness. "Any moment now, I'll go back to being who I was before: the Doctor, a lonely old man in a box, the last of the Time Lords. I'll never know what I did, that I saved Gallifrey instead of burned it…that I still have a home and a family."

"But you know _now_; that's what matters. And you'll know again some day, ready to find your way back home," she insisted, her tone earnest. "Besides, you'll always have a family with you. All those people you've met, the lives you've touched. They'll always remember you. They're just as much your family as anyone, all under the TARDIS. Just as much home as anywhere in the universe."

The Doctor thought on her words, his thoughts taking him back to the last time he saw his so called family. It was supposed to be the end of the universe, the end of reality. But they had stopped it, he and Donna and Martha and Jack and Mickey and Sarah Jane and so many others. And Rose.

What was it that Sarah Jane had said to him? That he had the biggest family in the universe?

"I suppose…" he conceded, though he knew that in his heart, his family was locked in place where he would not find them, where he would not remember them. She knew that as well, but minds could be changed. Time could be rewritten, and the Doctor would one day realize that his friends were more important than he knew.

The TARDIS let off a loud noise, the chiming of the cloister bells sharp and stringent to her sensitive hearing. She had long overstayed her welcome. The timelines were rearranging, and the TARDIS had picked up on the disturbance. In a few more minutes, the Doctor would be gone, and the events of the day would be a long-forgotten dream.

"Best be off then," she told him, making her way to the TARDIS doors. "Can't be in your head when the timelines converge or else things will get a bit messy."

She didn't really have to exit through the doors; all she had to do was will herself away back into her dormant state. But for the sanity of the Doctor, she played the part of the human he held dear. She was nearly touching the handle when she felt fingers pass through her wrist. Shocked from the sensation, she turned to see the Doctor there, staring at his hand, but more importantly, staring at her with wide eyes.

"Please," the Doctor pleaded, curling the hand he'd extended into a fist at his side. He looked tense, like her leaving was causing him some sort of pain. "Please don't go."

"I have to. Too many laws of time have been broken already. You should know that better than anyone,' she explained, hoping to placate him. "But don't worry, we'll see each other again."

"But that's impossible," he scoffed, tossing her a rueful sideways glance.

"Nothing's impossible, not for the Bad Wolf. After all, I am a vision from both your past _and _your future. Oh, the stories I could tell! But those are spoilers best left saved for later," she was the one rambling now, and he was dumbstruck by what she was saying. He had a thousand questions, all of them racing around in circles in his brain, but she raised her hand to silence him which for once, he actually obeyed. "Now is not the time for questions, my dear Doctor. I believe you have somewhere to be. You've been ignoring the Ood for far too long."

"Have I?" he asked, his eyebrows rising – and dare she say wagging – at the words, some of his humor coming back. "And how would you know something like that?"

He stepped into her space once more, nose to nose with the lady who seemed to hold all the cards that lay in his future, and she met him half way in a challenge, that same look of mischief plastered on her face. Her tongue poked out from behind her teeth, and she finally turned to the console, running her hands over the humming metal.

"I always know. Like I said, I can see everything," she mused, and bringing her hand to her lips, she kissed her palm and sparks of gold flew around the control room. "And I'll always take you where you need to go."

Her eyes glowed that familiar gold of the Time Vortex – of the Bad Wolf – but this time, it was different. She was completely in control, lowering her hand to the console that sprung to life at her touch, the TARDIS lurching and wheezing into flight.

She was teasing him and he knew it. She was a projection from his mind, and yet he let himself be surprised at her knowledge of the Ood, let himself be blown away by the honesty and the sincerity of the Bad Wolf. He let himself believe for once, that there were some things that were just out of his control, and laughed. Because the Moment told him that he was going to see Rose Tyler again; he didn't know how, he didn't know when, and he was going to forget about it any second if the growing chimes of the cloister bells meant something important. But it was going to happen, someday and somehow, and his hearts could've burst from happiness.


End file.
